Linux Might Drop The Apple HFS / HFS+ File-System Kernel Driver Support
There's the possibility raised that the mainline Linux kernel might remove its file-system kernel drivers for Apple HFS and HFS+ this year.
Apple no longer supports the Hierarchical File System on the latest versions of macOS itself and in prior releases was read-only support since macOS 10.6 for HFS itself. The newer HFS+ file-system does continue to be supported by Apple. Linux support for HFS has been poor and ill-maintained and it looks like the kernel drivers could be on their way out.
Prominent Linux kernel developer Christian Brauner of Microsoft has raised the possibility of removing the HFS/HFS+ kernel drivers this year. Brauner posted today:
It makes sense with them being orphaned for more than a decade and Apple not even supporting the original HFS on macOS 10.15+. For those wanting to access HFS file-systems from Linux, there does exist HFS FUSE driver support for leveraging file-systems in user-space.
The issue was raised that some Linux distributions do rely on the HFS+ driver for installing on Intel-based Macs where HFS+ can be used as the EFI System Partition (ESP). We'll see what solution comes about there or if it's decided to only remove the original HFS (not HFS+) kernel driver support. In any event we'll see what comes about and if anyone bothers to step up to maintain the HFS Linux driver code.
Apple no longer supports the Hierarchical File System on the latest versions of macOS itself and in prior releases was read-only support since macOS 10.6 for HFS itself. The newer HFS+ file-system does continue to be supported by Apple. Linux support for HFS has been poor and ill-maintained and it looks like the kernel drivers could be on their way out.
Prominent Linux kernel developer Christian Brauner of Microsoft has raised the possibility of removing the HFS/HFS+ kernel drivers this year. Brauner posted today:
"Let's try and remove #hfs and #hfsplus by the end of 2025. They have been orphaned since 2014 and are turning into a maintenance burden."
It makes sense with them being orphaned for more than a decade and Apple not even supporting the original HFS on macOS 10.15+. For those wanting to access HFS file-systems from Linux, there does exist HFS FUSE driver support for leveraging file-systems in user-space.
The issue was raised that some Linux distributions do rely on the HFS+ driver for installing on Intel-based Macs where HFS+ can be used as the EFI System Partition (ESP). We'll see what solution comes about there or if it's decided to only remove the original HFS (not HFS+) kernel driver support. In any event we'll see what comes about and if anyone bothers to step up to maintain the HFS Linux driver code.